Re: summary attribute compromise proposal

At 02:38 PM 8/6/2009 +0200, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:

>In that regard: the draft says that UAs MAY present @summary. I wonder if 
>this is *predictable* enough? SHOULD seems righter.
>
>The reason for not saying MUST are:
>
>* to avoid duplication: if one of the new recommended methods have been 
>used, and the UA is able to identify and support those.
>* that some tables in fact are layout tables.

Repeated from a previous response to Maciej:

I have noted comments from various people including yourself about
the visibility of @summary. I would like to suggest wording...

"The summary attribute is intended primarily for use by Assistive 
Technology (AT).
The value of the attribute is intended to be text which describes or 
summarizes the table
for readers who may not be able to see it. Interactive screen readers and 
other AT software
can present the value of the summary attribute to the user to assist them 
in understanding
its structure or content. Visual user agents may also display the value of 
the summary attribute,
but are advised to do so only at user request or as a result of user 
preference settings, because
the information contained in the summary attribute is typically redundant 
for individuals
who can see the table."

I didn't spend a lot of time writing that, so it could certainly benefit 
from wordsmithing.

Regards,

Murray

Received on Thursday, 6 August 2009 13:23:06 UTC